


Kindling

by TanukiKyle



Series: Dragon Fire [1]
Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pern, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-14 13:15:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5745244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TanukiKyle/pseuds/TanukiKyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part of a fusion/AU with DRAGONS. Specifically Pern Dragons, but meddled with a bit because gender politics are BS~ The first installment, where Agatha grows up. *u*</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Age 3

The locket wasn’t working.

Oh it was working in a way. There was no imminent breakthrough occurring, it was definitely suppressing Agatha’s spark. It made her dull, dreamy. The issue was what the dreams were about. Agatha spoke hesitantly, when confronted about them, thumb in her mouth.

“She’s…’old. And alone.”

The first couple of times, it’s glossed over as a dream, simply a nightmare. Soothed of course. Loved, talked-through about it wasn’t her Uncle Barry’s choice to leave, that he didn’t mean to leave her cold and alone. Agatha seems comforted enough, but there’s this puzzlement in her expression when she looks at her caretakers sometimes when it comes up. Punch and Judy consider the dreams a natural product of separation from her previous caretaker. 

The dreams, however, do not cease. In fact, over the next few months, as they start knowing each other, trusting each other, (Agatha-with-locket trusts far easier, they discover, but occasionally there’s a flash of the old her, the small child who when they approached the camp under cover of darkness, sprang up yelling ‘INTRUDERS UNCA BARRY!’ at full volume, fire in her eyes.) they hear her crying at night. During the day she is subdued (more than normal, even with the locket), and the only thing she’ll say about is she’s having dreams.

Punch takes to carting her around on his shoulders and she laughs and demands to go higher, higher, she wants to fly! (and she says it like that too, not ‘I want’ but ‘she wants’.) It becomes her favourite game, for a while, and the crying stops. 

Until one night when Agatha wakes with a scream and is inconsolable, sobbing and trying to speak but getting nothing but garbled noises. In the end, Judy stands in Punch’s arms and just rocks her until she cries it out. 

In the morning, Punch signs rapid-fire to Judy, who scowls whilst chopping breakfast. In the end however, they agree: they will have to ask. 

“....What’s wrong, Agatha?”

“....She’s sad.”

And it’s a little weird, that Agatha refers to herself in the third person, but it’s not the weirdest thing any child has done - and she is still young, perhaps that’s why.

“Why are you sad?”

“She’s…..”

Agatha trails off, and Judy’s eyes slip shut for a single second, arms itching to gather up her not-a-daughter. Agatha is a child full of love and laughter and wonder at the world and Judy thinks she would love her whether or not she was Bill’s. 

“...is she cold and alone?”

Agatha looks at Judy with a puzzled expression.

“She’s never been cold. She’s fire incarnate, why would she be cold?”

 

It’s then they realize: it was never cold.

Agatha was never saying cold. When she said ‘she’ it wasn’t in reference to herself. The flying game. The way she’s drawn to fire, watches it flicker and blaze for hours in the smithy whilst the two constructs work and teach her. 

Deep under Castle Heterodyne, Punch and Judy know, dragon eggs sleep, locked in time for when a Heterodyne returns to claim them. Among them sit bronze and blue and green, brown and then. Deepest among them in the castle’s embrace lies Gold. Literally of course as well, the castle is full of treasures, but this among them is the greatest. 

They’ve never seen the Gold. Whether there is one or many, nobody knows. 

(Bill would know, Barry perhaps. But they are gone, and only Agatha remains.)

But they do know now that one exists, that one of them is Agatha’s. It is rare, but not impossible for dragons to form bonds to their riders before the riders are ready. Punch thinks he’s met about three jagers it’s happened to….And of course it happened to Bill, who flew a Gold.

Maybe it’s a Gold thing, Judy suggests, when Agatha is tucked in bed asleep. 

Maybe, Punch agrees. Whatever the reason, he signs, it needs to stop.

They look at each other and in both their eyes is an expression they find familiar. Sorrow. Regret. A slow-burning anger that neither of them acknowledge yet.

What they will do to Agatha is almost as bad as what Barry has done. Worse, perhaps. But Barry has tasked them with her safety. She cannot be safe if she awakens. She will not be safe if she dreams with dragons. 

There is nowhere in Europa that is open to them anymore. The dreams of dragons stretch long over the land that the Heterodynes once ruled, where the Storm King once Flew. They will have to leave. England is too patrolled, they decide. It will have to be Paris - the ruse they have concocted for their previous destination (Beetleburg) will work here as well. Close enough to the truth that it is difficult to discern a lie.

Adam and Lilith Clay travel with their adopted daughter Agatha, and as much of their lives they have managed to salvage from when Baron Wulfenbach destroyed their Spark for disturbing the peace. Of course, in a final act of defiance he had burned down the town around the Baron’s forces, leaving only scattered people. Loyalty programming? Hm, perhaps on some of his more successful experiments. Adam can’t even talk, what use is a minion who can’t say ‘yeth mathter?’ (This anecdote is told with a wry smile, and the guard at the gate who sports appealing fins and breathing equipment, who has been perfectly stern and motionless so far, flutters said fins in what Lilith suspects to be sympathy.) They heard that Paris is neutral, that they can get on with their lives there. They worked in the forges back then, and surely the University could use two people who are used to Sparkwork and are level-headed enough to not encourage the students? They just want to be left alone, to live peacefully. 

To give Agatha a new start away from the memories of her Uncle and her loss. 

 

(The guard assumes they mean her town, her family. The Clays know better. Her loss is far greater. They have never flown dragons, but they have been among those who do. To lose a dragon...few survive.)

The stamp on their immigration papers is granted, and as they enter the city Agatha stirs from her sleeping position on Adam’s arm. 

“S ‘loud.”

Lilith frowns. In fact, it is quiet - they’re some of the only ones on the tram at this time in the morning, where dawn is only just spreading it’s murky rays into the night. 

But Agatha slips back into sleep easily enough, with another comment falling from her lips as she does.

“....can’t hear you….”

Lilith pinches her mismatched eyes shut. (Behind her, Adam's hands tighten almost imperceptibly on Agatha.) 

When Agatha wakes in tears, unable to explain why she’s crying, fingers scrabbling at her own chest hard enough that Adam has to hold them away lest they draw blood, Lilith sheds a few tears of her own.

She will live.  
She will be safe.  
One day she might even manage happiness.

That will have to suffice.


	2. Age 4

Paris is...odd.

  
With Bill and Barry, Adam and Lilith - or Punch and Judy as they were then - travelled many places in Europa, and of course they existed first in Mechanicsburg which could win awards for ‘odd’. 

  
But still, they find this new city strange in ways they have not come across before. Paris considers itself a city of culture, of art and science, a forerunner in fashion as well as innovation. But most of all it considers itself safe - ruled and guarded by the Master of Paris, and enforced by the authorities that he controls, the rules put in place.

 

But it was the unspoken rules that were strange. Some form of unspoken rules existed in all cities, but Paris’s rules were different. In Europa, a passing construct (at least an obvious one) would have eyes slid over them at best, and spat on at worst. Here it wasn’t about biology, or appearance, or even your history. No, eyes slid over you for different reasons. For not wearing the right fashions. For not living on the right street. For lots of things that Lilith and Adam were struggling to put a name to, to understand and adapt to. 

  
Agatha was a blessing and a curse all in one.

  
She was a bonny child, cute and with a curiosity that whilst often met with suspicion in Europa was only met with encouragement in Paris. (Sometimes Adam and Lilith wished slightly LESS encouragement.)

 

She could ask questions that Lilith and Adam knew better than to say out loud, find answers to things they desperately needed to know.    
  


But on the flipside, Agatha was very much Bill’s daughter. 

  
She didn’t take injustice well. She didn’t like others being hurt, and she didn’t mingle well with those who thought they were better than others by virtue of...well, for any reason, really.

 

The locket didn’t help, either.

  
She would start ranting to someone about how the rule was stupid, about how birth order or where you lived or whether you were wearing chartreuse or lime didn’t matter. But then of course the locket would shut her down, and Lilith and Adam would have to carry her home with a headache that made her cry and hide her eyes from the sun.

 

The thing was it didn’t always happen when she was angry, either. Sometimes it would happen when she was happy, and that was heartbreaking. She’d start humming in an all-too-familiar way. Not quite heterodyning, but the precursor. And then the locket would kick in.   
  
And Agatha was a smart child.  She was able to recognize the pattern, that thinking and focusing and learning too much meant pain.  And she didn’t want to be in pain.

 

This, naturally, meant that schooling became an issue very quickly.    
  
Finding a school had been hard enough - most were booked up. One particularly exclusive place had snottily enquired when the baby was due so they could sign them up on the waiting list in an appropriate place.

  
Finding a school that could deal with Agatha was nigh impossible. Her ‘medical issues’ were difficult enough to provide care for, but while Agatha was kind, it was not the sort of kindness that led to being well-behaved. After three tester days, Lilith was beginning to worry. Taking a sip of her hot chocolate, she watched Agatha over the kitchen table.   
  
It wasn’t lost on Agatha, either. She was morosely staring at her own hot chocolate, slumped on the table.   
  
At least, Lilith told herself, school wasn’t the only interaction Agatha was getting. Which reminded her. Looking at the clock, she drank the rest of her chocolate before putting her mug in the small sink. 

 

“Emilien will be here soon.” she reminded Agatha gently. Agatha gave a sigh, and began drinking the hot chocolate, though she was still slouched terribly.   
  
Lilith gave her no more than a few minutes before she cheered up once Emilien arrived. Agatha and the boy got along well, though they did have a penchant for causing mischief.

 

Indeed, it was only moments after Emilien had wheeled himself through the door that Agatha gave a begrudging smile, and soon the children were chatting amicably. Lilith smiled at Pierre as he entered the house. 

  
Pierre had been a blessing too. 

  
A few days after they’d found a place (and that had been a nightmare too, living out a hotel whilst desperately trying to find something suitable...) he’d turned up at the door still in his guard’s uniform. At first it had been worrying, but it had turned out he was there as a social call more so than by duty.   
  
Not, that he had swiftly signed to Adam, that looking after residents wasn’t part of his duties! But this was more a personal call, to see how they were settling in, and if they wanted to come to group. Group? Adam had signed back, and Pierre explained.   
  


It turned out that their cover story might have been more apt than they’d thought. Apparently constructs raising children wasn’t unusual in Paris. Whether it was because a Spark had blown themselves up and left a kid behind, or because most constructs didn’t have functioning reproductive organs and therefore had to adopt, there was a thriving community of construct parents, a large proportion of whom attended a group called ‘Lumiere’’, which Pierre shyly admitted he was the current leader of.    
  


There was no pressure to join, he continued, but sometimes it was nice to have a supportive environment, or to talk to others in similar situations, or even share tips and tricks. Handing them a small leaflet, he tipped his hat to them, and wished them a good day.

  
They’d debated back and forth, but eventually decided it would be good for Agatha to meet other children at least. Still they went to the first meeting with some caution.

 

It had been needless, as it turned out. Oh the group wasn’t ideal - some people were abrasive, some snobby, some painfully shy. But Pierre was an excellent leader, and had a way with both the adults and the children that soothed ruffled feathers (in some cases literally) and calmed situations down quickly. His lack of voice didn’t impede him at all - a slender avian construct fluttered near him most of the time, and translated seemingly effortlessly into whatever language was needed. Later they would introduce themselves as Dominique - or ‘Mini’ for short. It suited them well, they joked, because they were pretty small! 

 

The kids were a varied lot, too. Mostly human (Paris frowned heavily upon experimenting with children) but there were a handful of child-constructs as well. A true mixture of personalities and ages from babies to teenagers, though the latter were skulking in a corner whereas the former were set up in playpens. 

 

Agatha took to other children like a duck to water. Fascinated with the babies she was thrilled when allowed to hold one, taking instructions on how to hold the little boy with wide, serious eyes. She pulled faces at him and laughed when he babbled back to her. She’d earnestly started trying to teach him words when another boy - around the same age as Agatha by the look of him - started arguing loudly with an older boy. 

  
“I’m telling you, that’s not how the water cycle works!”   
  
“I’m older than you! I know how the water cycle works!”   
  


“Obviously you don’t.  Without interference -”

  
By this time, Agatha had carefully placed the baby back onto its cushion, and wandered over, intrigued.    
  


“ - the water evaporates and forms rain in the air. It’s a cycle -”

“Yeah so rain brings the water BACK so it fills up the sea more!”

  
Agatha snorts loudly, and both boys pause, turning to the smaller, younger child.

  
“The sea loses water when the evaporation occurs. There isn’t an endless supply of water being created.”

 

“See that’s what I was saying.”

 

The older boy’s face crumples and goes red. He crosses his arms resolutely.

 

“Well you’re almost a baby anyway, what do you know!”

 

“I’m not a baby!”   
  
“Then why were you in the playpen, huh?”   
  


“I was looking after the babies.” 

 

“Naw, you were playing with them ‘cause you’re a baby too!”

  
Agatha hears a buzzing sound, and she opens her throat to argue, to put forth the knowledge about the water cycle and to - to - the buzzing gets louder and then abruptly stops. Painfully stops, and Agatha clutches her head and suddenly she’s on the floor.

 

Oddly, the first voice she hears isn’t Lilith’s. It’s the boy in the wheelchair, telling her to breathe. 

 

“In and out, that’s it. The pain is there but it isn’t all that’s there. Deep breaths.”

 

It helps, and it starts a friendship between Agatha and Emilien that Lilith is half-sure she regrets, sometimes. Like now. The pair of them are almost definitely planning something, because it has gone suspiciously quiet upstairs.

 

Pierre too, has perked his fins towards the upstairs. Mini pats his arm companionably, and speaks.   
  
“Do you mind if I go check on the two of them?”

 

Adam signs his permission, pleased that Mini thought to ask instead of just going. Mini is infallibly polite, and frankly it soothes his nerves after a fraught day.    
  
Mini’s talons click against the floor and the wooden stairs as they ascend to check the children, and Pierre signs companionably with Adam. Lilith prepares the drinks- nothing for Pierre, a fruit tea for Mini when they reappear, and two coffees for herself and Adam now that Agatha isn’t around to sneak a sip.    
  
It is then she hears a familiar melodious laughter from upstairs, swiftly joined by two childish giggles, and the last of the tension sinks from her frame. If Mini is laughing, the kids are obviously aren’t planning too much trouble.    
  
She slides the drinks across the table, and Pierre delicately adds a little sugar to Mini’s drink, signing his thanks to Lilith. Lilith nods, taking a seat next to Adam. A pocket of peace, here. The children laughing upstairs, her great love next to her, and a good friend across the table. It may not be perfect, but she is content.

  
They chat amiably until Mini flutters back downstairs, eyes glittering with the smile their beak can’t express. 

  
“The children have a surprise for you all.”

 

Pierre blinks, bubbles in his breathing apparatus. Adam snorts in amusement and claps Pierre on the back, heaving himself to his feet. Pierre narrows his eyes at Adam playfully and they all trail upstairs, Emilien’s voice beginning to filter through.

  
“That’s it, just a little bit, like I showed you.”

 

“Got it!”   
  


“Ready?”   
  
“Ready! You can come in now guys!”   
  


They open the door to a paper-mache….thing, staring at them. Emilien must have smuggled it upstairs under his blanket when Pierre carried his wheelchair up.    
  
As they watch it flexes as Agatha pours a little liquid in, then explodes into red and orange foam that trails down the sides, which is when they realise what it is.

 

Adam is grinning and Pierre’s fins are fluttering, and Lilith can’t help but smile, even as the foam leaks onto the floor, to which the two children yelp and start to try and stem the flow and it’s then she chuckles.

 

“What are you calling it?” Mini translates Pierre’s signs as the children aren’t looking.

 

The children look up, puzzled, but Adam has understood, and he signs too, this time left untranslated - both of the children are fluent, after all.

  
‘Volcanoes typically have a name, after all.’

 

The children look at each other, then lean into a huddle of whispered discussion.

 

“Mt. Emilatha!”

 

“Do you want to know how it works?” Agatha is beaming, and she starts chattering a mile a minute about the science behind it. Not a hint of a headache is in sight, and Lilith blinks.

 

“I learnt it at school! …..How come Agatha doesn’t come to school?”

 

Mini chirps at their son reprimanding, but it’s a question of merit. Lilith hadn’t though to ask Pierre about Emilien’s school - if they’re accessible and able to deal with Emilien, they might be prepared to deal with Agatha. And however Emilien’s explained the work to Agatha it’s worked. 

 

Lilith looks to Adam, who nods, and starts signing to Pierre, who signs back.    
  


Agatha starts the next week, and comes home every day with new knowledge. Emilien is still a frequent visitor, but there are other children now who visit. Agatha thrives.   
  
Oh she still has the headaches, still comes home crying sometimes.

  
But she is safe and she is learning.    
  
That has to count for something, right? 

  
  
  
  
  



End file.
